Urantia Book: Complications and Contradictions

[REASON]

Well, the great thing about the UB is that refusing to believe without seeing is not punishable by death or eternal hellfire.:eek: I don't hold it against you in the least, and neither does God. The fact that you are willing to "hop on board" when you are shown will be more than enough to ensure your eternal survival.

 

If there were such a thing as "eternal survival" (which is one if the primary needs I was referring to), there is nothing that would put mine in jeopardy. But I have no reason to believe in, or expect, eternal survival.

 

But it's sure is nice to know that the god of the UB isn't mad at me. :confused:

 

 

I don't read the book in order to fulfill a psychological need to be in some special club that is "in the know" - I sincerely want to know more about deity and the universe. I'm sure you don't hold that against me.

 

Of course I don't hold anything against you. I don't even know you. But if you're really interested in understanding the universe, I recommend science. You'd be astonished by what you could learn about the universe that is actually supported by evidence. Real science puts the UB fantasy to shame. You should check it out.

[Majeston]

 

 

 

Of course I don't hold anything against you. I don't even know you. But if you're really interested in understanding the universe, I recommend science. You'd be astonished by what you could learn about the universe that is actually supported by evidence. Real science puts the UB fantasy to shame. You should check it out.

 

Are these following two examples of what you mean by "real science" putting the Ub to shame?

 

McMenamin, Mark A. S. (1998) Discovering the First Complex Life: The Garden of Ediacara. Cambridge:

 

Cambridge University Press.

"

The last quotation in this chapter's epigraph describes the Proterozoic breakup of the supercontinent

Rodinia. This amazing passage, written in the 1930s, anticipates scientific results that did not actually

appear in the scientific literature until many decades later. This unusual source is The Urantia Book.4"

 

.........."Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically

untenable material in The Urantia Book. However, the concept of a billion-year-old supercontinent (the

currently accepted age for the formation of Rodinia) that subsequently split apart, forming gradually

widening ocean basins in which early marine life flourished, is unquestionably present in this book.

(McMenamin 1998: 174)

 

Orthodox scientific arguments for such a proposal did not appear until the late 1960s, and a pre-Pangea

supercontinent was never described until Valentine and Moores made the attempt in 1970. The Urantia

Corps not only had the age of the formation of Rodinia approximately correct at 1 billion years, but they

also were first to link breakup of Rodinia to the emergence of animals (even if the mode of appearance was

implantation by extraterrestrials). Furthermore, they even got the timing of that approximately correct at

650 to 600 million years ago ("These inland seas of olden times were truly the cradle of evolution").8

(McMenamin 1998: 174-175) "

 

.........

"Assuming for the moment that space voyagers are not responsible for life’s origin and history on this planet,

one wonders how the Urantia Book authors arrived at the concept of a Proterozoic supercontinent, and the

link between breakup of this supercontinent and the emergence of complex life in the ensuing rift oceans,

30 years before most geologists accepted continental drift and nearly four decades before scientists had any

inkling that Rodinia existed. The anonymous authors responsible for the critical part of section 3 evidently

possessed a high level of geological training, and while writing in the 1930s must have known of

Wegener’s ideas on continental drift. Perhaps he or she was, or had contact with, an expatriate from Nazi

Germany. Whatever the identity of the author, this person proceeded to speculate about the relationship

between evolutionary change and the breakup of a Proterozoic supercontinent in an exceptionally fruitful

way. Perhaps this was because the thought and the writing of this person were not fettered by the normal

constraints of the (too often highly politicized) scientific review process. (McMenamin 1998: 175-176)

 

Cases such as this one (which is by no means unique) are an exercise in humility for me as a scientist. How

can it be that discovery of Rodinia, plus a fairly sophisticated rendering of the evolutionary implications of

the rifting of Rodinia, falls to an anonymous author engaging in a work of religious revelation decades

before scientists find out anything about the subject? Perhaps this is an important aspect of religion-a

creative denial of certain aspects of reality in order to access a deeper truth. (McMenamin 1998: 176)

 

I am not advocating an abandonment of a disciplined scientific peer review process, but I can’t help but

wonder whether science would benefit by having scientists themselves or friends of science systematically

 

 

McMenamin, Mark A. S. (1998) Discovering the First Complex Life: The Garden of Ediacara. Cambridge:

 

Cambridge University Press.

 

scan the various nonscientific literatures for writings such as those appearing in The Urantia Book.

Scientists would ordinarily ignore and dismiss such writings, but a discerning eye might pick up some

gems. (McMenamin 1998: 176)

 

The concept of Rodinia therefore has a shockingly unexpected intellectual pedigree. When does the concept

finally enter the conventional scientific channels? In articles published in the early 1970s, James W.

Valentine and Eldridge M. Moores traced the geological history of the continents and spoke of a

Precambrian supercontinent.10 This continent was subsequently called proto-Pangea, pre-Pangea, Pangea I,

the Late Proterozoic Supercontinent, ur-Pangea, or simply the Precambrian supercontinent. While writing

The Emergence of Animals, Dianna McMenamin and I grew weary of these cumbersome names and

proposed the name Rodinia for the ancient supercontinent. The corresponding superocean also needed a

name, and we decided to call it Mirovia. Here is the key passage from Emergence of Animals11:

 

Mirovia is derived from the Russian word mirovoi meaning "world or global," and, indeed, this

ocean was global in nature. Rodinia comes from the infinitive rodit, which means "to beget" or "to

grow." Rodinia begot all subsequent continents, and the edges (continental shelves) of Rodinia

were the cradle of the earliest animals.

 

Curiously, The Urantia Book also refers to Mirovia, the "world ocean."12 Here are my notes regarding the

name from p. 17 of my 1987 composition notebook:

 

5/12/87 This book would be a good opportunity to "name" "paleo-Pangaea" and "proto-

Panthallasa"

 

How about:

Ur-something

Rodinia from Russian rod: genus rodit: beget, come up, grow

 

****************

*****************

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

 

 

 

 

Nobel-Laureate Kary Mullis

 

The Urantia Book

 

"

 

The Urantia Book was purportedly written by extraterrestrials and published in 1955. It has been freely available on the internet since 2001. Several scientific developments, unexpected in 1955, reported in 2005 in Science and Nature, and referenced below, were somehow, described rather precisely already in the Urantia Book. I have documented three cases here, but there are many contemporary scientific discoveries which were first posited as far as I can tell, in this rather large tome. There is much in here, the truth of which cannot be judged from the apparent truth of these several instances. The book claims a large number of authors. Much of it would be considered "politically incorrect" and might infuriate some people. I suggest that you not be shooting at the messenger; I am just reporting what I have observed.

 

Striking Coincidences Between The Urantia Book (Copyright 1955) three articles in Science: 309 (2005), and one in Nature, (2005)

"

[Majeston]

aww come on, lets give credit where credit is due, humans are complety capable of writing a long manuscript full of BS, lies and inuendoes. Urantia book is proof of this.

 

 

you of course can provide examples of this from your in-depth exhaustive research for us to judge for ourselves, right ?

[Moontanman]

you of course can provide examples of this from your in-depth exhaustive research for us to judge for ourselves, right ?

 

I've read every post, every link and tried to read as much as I could that was on-line and the urantia book is bullshit in it's most raw and smelly form. Give me anything from it that isn't bullshit that couldn't have been known ahead of time. The sun is made up of sodium? Yeah, I admit I'm wrong it's gotta be true, the word of superior beings no doubt about it. Happy now?

[Moontanman]

Striking Coincidences Between The Urantia Book (Copyright 1955) three articles in Science: 309 (2005), and one in Nature, (2005)

 

The key word here is coincidence, there science fiction novels that do a better job of predicting eventual scientific advances that that. You base your ideas about the urantia book on a few coincidences when so much of the book is pure bull ****? Gee, Star Trek must have been divinely inspired as well!

[modest]

I just looked at this Urantia book for the first time so please forgive my ignorance on the topic. I have a couple questions for anyone who is more informed on this book.

 

I went to "PART III - THE HISTORY OF URANTIA" guessing it would deal with less metaphysical things.

 

Does Urantia mean earth? I started on page 651:

900,000,000,000 years ago the Uversa archives testify

Is this a typo? When this book was written the scientific community knew the universe had a finite age much smaller than 900 billion years.

 

It then tells how a nebula collapsed into our sun then...

2,000,000,000 years ago the earth began decidedly to gain on the moon. Always had the planet been larger than its satellite, but there was not so much difference in size until about this time, when enormous space bodies were captured by the earth. Urantia was then about one fifth its present size and had become large enough to hold the primitive atmosphere which had begun to appear as a result of the internal elemental contest between the heated interior and the cooling crust.

 

Two billion years ago earth was not one fifth its present size.

 

1,000,000,000 years ago is the date of the actual beginning of Urantia history... The real geologic history of Urantia begins with the cooling of the earth's crust sufficiently to cause the formation of the first ocean.

 

All wrong. The oceans are much older than one billion years.

 

700,000,000 years ago Urantia was approaching the ripening of conditions suitable for the support of life

 

Life is older than this. In fact, by this time there was already complex multicellular life.

 

So, have I misunderstood this - or is the whole book similarly filled with clearly-wrong info? This is the first chapter I went to and basically, everything is wrong. I wonder what the hubbub is all about.

 

~modest

[Moontanman]

So, have I misunderstood this - or is the whole book similarly filled with clearly-wrong info? This is the first chapter I went to and basically, everything is wrong. I wonder what the hubbub is all about.

 

~modest

 

That is pretty much what I got from it as well. Much ado about the small number of things it did get right and ignoring the mountains of stuff it didn't,;)

[Turtle]

I just looked at this Urantia book for the first time so please forgive my ignorance on the topic. I have a couple questions for anyone who is more informed on this book.

 

I went to "PART III - THE HISTORY OF URANTIA" guessing it would deal with less metaphysical things.

 

Does Urantia mean earth?

Urantia is the authors' name for Earth, yes.

 

I started on page 651:

Originally Posted by Urantia, p.651

900,000,000,000 years ago the Uversa archives testify...

 

Is this a typo? When this book was written the scientific community knew the universe had a finite age much smaller than 900 billion years.

 

It is not a typo, and I think the publishers will say there are no typos throughout the tome. But you left off some of the best part of that passage. :naughty:

900,000,000,000 years ago the Uversa archives testify, there was recorded a permit issued by the Uversa Council of Equilibrium to the superuniverse government authorizing the dispatch of a force organizer and staff to the region previously designated by inspector number 811,307. ...

 

Here again, the authors give a 'fact' which no one can check and do so as a stylistic device in order to convey the air of authority needed to support the 9 hundred billion number, i.e., the 'fact' of "...inspector number 811,307.", and other such items as may fall into question.

 

So, have I misunderstood this - or is the whole book similarly filled with clearly-wrong info? This is the first chapter I went to and basically, everything is wrong. :shrug: I wonder what the hubbub is all about.

 

~modest

 

Yes you understand it, yes it's filled with clearly wrong info, and the hubub is about religion. Who'd a guessed it?

[Majeston]

Gene Roddenberry's StarTrek and "Prime Directive"was inspired from the Urantia papers. It is the same "prime directive" issued to jesus before his bestowal here.

 

The so-called few co-incidences you speak of are actually an overwhelming number and the "bullshit" you speak of, I haven't experienced. I think if you will carefully examine your own idea of b.s. your programmed bias will become evident to even you. The key word really isn't "co-incidence" as you have rendered your enlightened judgement upon, as if you were correct as it supports another of your assumptions that the Urantia papers have so so-called plethora of b.s.

 

What you fail to understand is that the Urantia papers are an "epochal revelation".

 

I don't expect you to understnad it or the scope of it in your cursory superficial examination, no matter how much you think you've read or understood or personally researched.

 

You don't walk into Gold's gym a 97 lb. weakling and expect to bench press 400 lbs. on your first try. A tadpole grows into a frog when it's ready as programmed by the original designer, not when you kick it or fill it full of drugs or send bolts of electricity through it.

 

It doesn't matter how much you think you know about "Science" or Reality or Religion or Life, or how many degrees you think you have. About this subject, you know virtually nothing.

 

You don't even know the right questions to ask.

[Majeston]

this is like the little comedy skit about 2 blind people walking around an elephant trying to describe it to each other.

[Turtle]

this is like the little comedy skit about 2 blind people walking around an elephant trying to describe it to each other.

 

That story is not a comedy, and it contains more than 2 characters. Moreover, I think you misapply the moral of the story.

The story of the blind men and an elephant appears to have originated in South Asia, but its original source is debated. It has been attributed to the Sufis, Jainists, Buddhists, or Hindus, and has been used by all those groups. The version best-known in the West is the 19th Century poem by John Godfrey Saxe. Buddha used the simile of blind men in Tittha sutta in Udana (Pali canon). Buddha used a row of blind men as an example in Canki sutta as well to explain the blind following of a leader or an old text that had come down generation after generation.

 

In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement. The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one's perspective, suggesting that what seems an absolute truth may be relative due to the deceptive nature of half-truths.

Blind Men and an Elephant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Who is blindly following an old text handed down here? Who is claiming an absolute truth here? Who is all blind here? :naughty:

[Majeston]

well, i see my last post got me some more negative reputation points. How cowardly, getting attacked for trying to help somebody out. How pathetic.

[Moontanman]

Gene Roddenberry's StarTrek and "Prime Directive"was inspired from the Urantia papers. It is the same "prime directive" issued to jesus before his bestowal here.

 

The so-called few co-incidences you speak of are actually an overwhelming number and the "bullshit" you speak of, I haven't experienced. I think if you will carefully examine your own idea of b.s. your programmed bias will become evident to even you. The key word really isn't "co-incidence" as you have rendered your enlightened judgement upon, as if you were correct as it supports another of your assumptions that the Urantia papers have so so-called plethora of b.s.

 

What you fail to understand is that the Urantia papers are an "epochal revelation".

 

I don't expect you to understnad it or the scope of it in your cursory superficial examination, no matter how much you think you've read or understood or personally researched.

 

You don't walk into Gold's gym a 97 lb. weakling and expect to bench press 400 lbs. on your first try. A tadpole grows into a frog when it's ready as programmed by the original designer, not when you kick it or fill it full of drugs or send bolts of electricity through it.

 

It doesn't matter how much you think you know about "Science" or Reality or Religion or Life, or how many degrees you think you have. About this subject, you know virtually nothing.

 

You don't even know the right questions to ask.

 

You haven't got any neg reps on this post from me yet but I will ask you two questions and I expect a honest answer. "Does it not matter to you that the lions share of scientific, and historic truths told in this "book" are simply not true?" "And if these things are false then does it not stand to reason everything else that cannot be confirmed is also suspect?" Don't ask me to tell you which ones I think are not true, so many have been pointed out in these threads I would wear out my hands even trying to type a small percentage of them. Address these two issues straight up please!

[Moontanman]

___The Urantia Book, first published in the early 1950's, purports to contain discertations delivered by "angels" on God, creation, science, spirits, Jesus, etc.. At some 3,000 plus pages it's no easy read!

___So I want to know if you have heard of it? Read it? Have an opinion on it?

___I believe it is a hoax for the record so my question is "who could have hoaxed this?". Even though it was published in the 50's, it seems to have been written earlier; possibly in the 30's. By the writing style which is so cleverly convolute, & the broadness of the topics covered, I tend to think it is the work of an enclave rather than a single author.

___I do heartily recommend people read it in any case because it is if nothing else a very fine work of mystical science fiction. :naughty:

 

Addendum: 30,000+ hits on Urantia

 

I agree that it is masterful work of science fiction/mysticism and would make a great religion for some complex science fiction book series of the caliber of Dune or some other complex series of books. You could probably design an entire fictional universe around this book. dozens of really great science fiction books but fiction is still fiction no matter how complex it might be.

[Majeston]

your question 2 depends on questions number 1 being a correct conclusion. It is not. I have studied it much longer and much more in-depth than yourself. If you think something has been "proven" wrong you ought to examine deeper what you think is right and why you think it is right. In the final analysis you will find "theory" rather than proof as your basis for what you call truth. In my lifetime these so-called theories have changed like the weather but The Upapers do not change and still has not one thing proven to be incorrect. QUite a feat in itself for something at least 75 years old now. In fact many so-called theories that were know as proofs years ago now agree with the Upapers. Another interesting so-called co-incidence.

[REASON]

your question 2 depends on questions number 1 being a correct conclusion. It is not. I have studied it much longer and much more in-depth than yourself. If you think something has been "proven" wrong you ought to examine deeper what you think is right and why you think it is right. In the final analysis you will find "theory" rather than proof as your basis for what you call truth. In my lifetime these so-called theories have changed like the weather but The Upapers do not change and still has not one thing proven to be incorrect. QUite a feat in itself for something at least 75 years old now. In fact many so-called theories that were know as proofs years ago now agree with the Upapers. Another interesting so-called co-incidence.

 

It's very interesting to me how much this argument of yours resembles the argument of Bible literalists, that science is invalid because it always changes but the Bible is the word of God and has remained unchanged for centuries. Or that the Bible never contradicts itself and nothing in it has been proven to be wrong. Or that The Book of Revelations has continually been shown to make accurate predictions.

 

You fault people for adopting beliefs around what you say are nothing but unproven theories, yet you have chosen to form your beliefs around another unproven "epochal revelation" in the Urantia Papers. Your choice to grant authority to the UP is no different than those who grant authority to the Holy Bible, the Torah, or the Qur'an based on faithful thinking.

 

Personally, I'm much more interested in the psychology behind the decision of people to surrender their critical thinking to these types of authoritative scriptures. But I imagine that is for another thread, and I respect Turtle's desire to stay on topic here.

[Moontanman]

your question 2 depends on questions number 1 being a correct conclusion. It is not. I have studied it much longer and much more in-depth than yourself. If you think something has been "proven" wrong you ought to examine deeper what you think is right and why you think it is right. In the final analysis you will find "theory" rather than proof as your basis for what you call truth. In my lifetime these so-called theories have changed like the weather but The Upapers do not change and still has not one thing proven to be incorrect. QUite a feat in itself for something at least 75 years old now. In fact many so-called theories that were know as proofs years ago now agree with the Upapers. Another interesting so-called co-incidence.

 

Ok, that doesn't sound all that unreasonable, can you list oh say six significant things the urantia book has predicted that science thought was something else but eventually found to be true?